


You Are Not Immune To Exp 0

by vanitasunverse



Series: Inside the Kingdom, with Heart [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, gameplay jokes that cater to me and myself alone, graphic depictions of violence stands for gameplay moves actually, vanitas' horrible terrible no good very bad day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 02:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21245972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanitasunverse/pseuds/vanitasunverse
Summary: Xehanort needs a fine vessel, perfect vessel, perfectly healthy and preferable not injured, and Vanitas never learned how to hold back.





	You Are Not Immune To Exp 0

**Author's Note:**

> i cannot shut up about the same BBS gameplay, Actually,
> 
> thinking about how xehanort and vanitas are a very good team, but absolutely horrible for you to fight against on lvl1

_“Remember Vanitas, you need to keep Terra alive.”_

Xehanort’s words echo in his mind. _Alive? Alive? What kind of bullshit fight is this? A war where no one is killed? Some fight you want, Master._

Vanitas runs across the keyblade graveyard, chasing the storm of keyblades the old master just sent down for him to ride on.

He jumps on them like it’s a second nature, passing over the valley that’s just been created, the keyblades rushing towards Ventus. _Not yet._

He narrows his eyes, gazing at the mountaintop above, where Xehanort should be. He can see Terra running up the side. With more effort than he’d like, he thwarts Xehanort’s magic into the direction he wants, the storm twisting and bending into a tunnel shooting at Terra. _Let me have fun._

He watches his original goal, Ventus run away faster than he can keep up with, but it doesn’t matter, that’s not who he’s going after right now anyways. He can hear Aqua shouting after the younger wielder and he scoffs. Idiots.

He lets the storm rain down on Terra, shoving him off the mountain in the process, then lets himself fall back near Xehanort.

“You want all of these losers alive?”

Xehanort doesn’t look at him, instead they’re still busy, Vanitas sees. Xehanort is already calling the keyblades back up, and when he peeks over the edge of the platform, he can see Aqua casting a spell and getting rushed by them. He laughs.

“Only Terra and Ventus are needed.”

Xehanort turns to him, and Vanitas laughs again.

“I get it. Eliminating the biggest threat and only keeping the goods?”

Xehanort doesn’t get the chance to answer him right away. A yell behind makes him dodge roll to the side. _Oh right, the other two are still there._

Terra crashes where he just stood, immediately getting up to attack Xehanort, but Vanitas knows his Master well.

Ventus has teleported behind Xehanort, but Xehanort is faster, already gone, now grabbing him by his head from behind.

“Ven!” Terra calls, attacking Xehanort with a blow, but before the hit connects, he’s blasted off by keyblades again, Vanitas effortlessly landing next to Xehanort, who is busy freezing Ventus with a blizzaga.

It’s odd to watch his other self near a death-experience, especially when Xehanort drops him without a word to plummet a few hundred feet. But there’s no time to sulk about Ventus suffering one or two more broken bones.

Especially not when Xehanort has already begun summoning all weird kinds of shit. The sky breaks open above them. 

_Such a weird shape in the air. Never seen this before._

Vanitas walks up to them. Like usual, Xehanort doesn’t seem to happy with him being around, but he can’t pinpoint why. _Whatever. Their problem._

“Keeping Terra alive is vital to the plan, Vanitas, and those keyblades you’re swinging down upon him are not ordinary.”

_Oh. Right. Needs to be alive._

Xehanort’s gaze follows him, scrutinizing him.

“Vanitas.”

“I know that.Not my fault I haven’t learned to fake out.” _Not my problem._

For a moment, there’s no sound except for the wind blowing, a metallic roar as it passes through the Graveyard’s formations.

“Did you bring Braig?”

“The weirdo from Radiant Garden? Yea.”

Vanitas doesn’t really get what Master Xehanort sees in that man. Not like he cares. _Also not my problem._

“He’s just where he needs to be.”

Xehanort nods, dismissing their keyblade. Vanitas keeps his, just to be safe. Unlike Xehanort, Vanitas isn’t the best at magic, and if Terra decides to come for him for some reason, he’d better be ready to resist him.

From below, he can hear a keyblade glider starting up. _Finally, I was starting to worry if he’d have any braincells at all._

Terra, like Xehanort predicted before all this, does not pay any attention at all to Vanitas. He’s agitated, that’s for sure. He’s also bent on destroying Xehanort. Such a shame Vanitas can’t observe anymore. Xehanort gestures with their hand, summoning No Name, signaling Vanitas needs to get into action.

_Don’t mess this up, don’t speak, fight him until he wears out._

Simple and short orders, exactly the way Vanitas liked them. Left him enough room to fill in the details. He jumps at Terra with a dark thundaga, before almost getting launched into the air by Xehanort’s quake spell, a mountain rising within seconds separating him from his target. _Right. Alive._

He almost forgot dark thundagas are quite lethal, when taken point blank, and it’s not like Terra is paying him enough attention to block. Terra has only one thing on his mind, and it isn’t Vanitas.

Frustrating. He has to hold back more.

He stays away from the battle for a moment, before realizing Terra is already heading towards Xehanort again, the old master teleporting away until they’re behind Vanitas, and suddenly Terra is in front of him, preparing a fire strike. The burning blade barely misses him,and Vanitas jumps backwards,sending him four crawling fires in return.

A thundaga lands nearby and he realizes Xehanort has seen that, and he sighs and dismisses the flames. He jumps backwards from Terra again, and it seems that he’s finally catching on that he’ll need to get past Vanitas first to get to Xehanort.

He sheepishly stands close to Terra, pretending to hit him with with a dark blow, but he horribly misses. He doesn’t know what else to do. Every other attack in his arsenal was made for killing. He shifts his stance, thinking about how to fake out on him next, and then Terra whacks him across his face with his ridiculously sized keyblade. _Ah, shit._

The world seems to shift, spin and turn, and everywhere he looks he sees Terra coming for him.

From there on, Vanitas spends time dodge rolling whatever Terra throws at him, but too often he miscalculates, Terra’s ferocity throwing him off, giving him too little space, even trapping him against the edge of the field. Master Xehanort only teleports in to save him from the lethal blows, and he’s pretty sure that if he got torn up right now they couldn’t care less.

Another sonic blade that barely misses his stomach, a blitz that makes his head feel like it just cracked open, his internal organs are set on fire, another set of hits on his body and Vanitas thinks he’s broken his left wrist, there’s at least 5 stabwounds on his legs. He dodges a firaga, not thinking about his hurt arm for a moment, before the pain rips through his entire body. Then he’s frozen.

His vision blurs a little, and he’s so glad his helmet covers up his expression. Behind him, he can hear Terra running towards Xehanort, inevitably not going to be successful in landing a hit on them.

Vanitas tries to move himself, and the ice slowly breaks apart, but he’s cold and he hates what he feels.

_Everything hurts._ It’s not fair, how he has to suffer, how he just wants to be with his other half again, and instead gets stuck in this _bullshit_ fight.

He lets out a frustrated snarl, diving into the ground with fire and shadow on his trail, resurfacing when he’s near his target. “Suffer!”

_Yea, that’s right. Suffer like I did._

When he lands on his feet, panting and still burning inside, Terra is lying unconscious on the ground. Xehanort sighs before checking Terra’s pulse. They dismiss their keyblade, shaking their head in disappointment.

“You never even bothered to level your pupils up, Eraqus.” They murmur, Vanitas confused about what those words might mean. _Whatever. Still not my problem._


End file.
